site.btaVelichie Floor Leader: Council of Ministers Is Responsible for National Security

Speaking to the media in Parliament on Friday, Velichie floor leader Nikolay Markov said that the Council of Ministers is responsible for national security. He was commenting on the letter that caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev sent to Parliament Speaker Raya Nazaryan and the parliamentary groups in the 50th National Assembly on Thursday with a request to decide who will represent Bulgaria at the NATO Summit in Washington on July 9-11.

"[President Rumen] Radev can attend. There were such proposals, but at the end of the day, it is the Council of Ministers that is responsible for national security," Markov said. "The fact that the National Assembly has never determined this before is indicative enough that the National Assembly is not the body to determine it now either. This is our stance," he added.

Markov reiterated that he had asked for a meeting with GERB leader Boyko Borissov in order to be briefed on the intentions of the No. 1 political force for the governance of the country. "He refused to hold a meeting. I am not mad at him, of course. It is his right," the Velichie floor leader said, adding that no further attempts to meet Borrisov have been made.

"I don't see why There Is Such a People should get the third mandate," he said in response to TISP’s bid to receive the third exploratory government-forming mandate, which is handed over by the President to a parliamentary party of his choice.

On Wednesday, TISP leader Slavi Trifonov said that his party, which has 16 MPs in the 240-seat Parliament, would back neither the first nor the second mandate, which are bound by Constitution to go to the two largest groups, GERB-UDF and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. TISP wants to get the third mandate so as to form an expert cabinet, Trifonov added.

Markov asked why should not Velichie get the mandate and form an expert cabinet, noting that the party ended up just 1.5% behind TISP in the June 9 snap parliamentary elections. "We will wait patiently and see what happens, we are not involved in backstage negotiations with anyone," the party floor leader said.